The sun is so far away that its rays are essentially parallel. The reddish light that’s left goes straight ahead, causing the shafts of light to take on a reddish hue. The long path the sunlight takes through the atmosphere at sunrise causes the blue light to scatter out of the beam. We see the shafts of light only because the dusty air scatters some of the sunlight to our eyes. In this case, the clouds forming the rays were out of sight below the eastern horizon.
Crepuscular rays, also called god beams, form when shafts of sunlight shine through holes in dense clouds.
By now the trail was familiar, and I summited Shavano in time to photograph a beautiful display of crepuscular rays to the east just before sunrise. I had lost the previous night’s sleep hiking up Tabeguache Peak in the dark and shooting sunrise from its summit, so I was feeling rather weary when the alarms went off at 11:30 p.m., signaling the beginning of my ascent of Mt.